Dominic O’Hanlon (CEO - Rhipe)
ASX-listed Rhipe has appointed Gary Cox as its new chairman and non-exec director following the retirement of Mike Hill.
Hill has occupied the chairman’s post for about five years, seeing the distributor through its ASX listing process. He said Cox’s leadership experience across Asia will be a great advantage to the distributor as it seeks to further develop and grow in the region.
Cox brings more than 30 years of experience in the technology industry, in roles spanning many regions including UK, US, Asia and A/NZ, working for companies such as Microsoft and EMC at the time, where he was the head of EMC’s Australia-based global services division.
“I’m very excited to join the board of Rhipe as it continues to evolve its cloud offerings and develop its geographical expansion strategy. I look forward to the opportunity to provide regional, strategic and leadership insights to the board and company as it continues along its growth trajectory,” Cox said.
During his time at Microsoft, Cox held several senior sales and consulting leadership roles, served as the vice president for its enterprise and partner business in Asia and Japan; and led its Office 365 cloud business across Asia.
“Gary’s leadership experience across Asia will be a great advantage to Rhipe as we continue to grow and develop our operations in the region, as will his deep understanding of the evolving cloud industry and our leading vendors," said Dominic O’Hanlon, Rhipe's managing director. "We are very excited to welcome him to the board at this juncture and look forward to his input into our growth strategy.”
The distributor has been vocal in its growth ambitions after closing the first half of the 2019 financial year with $3 million net profit after tax (NPAT), or 181 per cent growth compared to the previous corresponding period when the company posted $1.1 million in NPAT.
The result follows a period of further investment in a number of key strategic initiatives including expansion in operations across South East Asia, Korea, New Zealand and Australia.
In January, Rhipe announced the acquisition of Queensland-based Microsoft partner Dynamics Business IT Solutions (DBITS) in a deal that could be worth up to $8 million, with $4.5 million payable on completion.
The privately-owned business operates as an IT services, integration and support business provider with a focus on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central.
The acquisition is part of the distributor's strategy to provide the "best platform", enablement and 24x7 support services around key Microsoft technologies.
